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That's a very forgiving approach - is there a cutoff? Do we say it's OK if 23 episodes "lack dramatic punch" if the payoff is in the 24th?
Of course every director is different, as you say, and that's why I said that an episode exists both as an entity and as part of the whole. It depends on the nature of criticism you believe in, I suppose - I don't think a director should be allowed to exempt himself from ongoing analysis because it's only relevant when viewed as a whole. That being said, I'd certainly say that if it were a matter of one episode, it wouldn't be of great concern for me. The issue I have is that the last three episodes have had major problems for me, and that's almost 40% of the total run-time to date. That's a lot of ask in the "just have faith" department.
I think a good example here would be the Lord of the Rings films. Jackson filmed them simultaneously - in fact, so out of sequence that many scenes in "Return of the King" were shot before scenes in "Fellowship". So of course, it makes sense to view the trilogy as a whole and judge it's worth in that context. But it's also valid - and I would say necessary - to analyze each film individually (as every critic, review board and awards committee did) at the time of it's release. They're films - they exist as independent entities, not just as a trilogy.
If Jackson wanted those films to be judged as a single unit, he would have released them as one (admittedly very long) film. If Ikuhara wants MPD judged as a movie, he should have made a movie or OVA. Since he made a series, the series needs to be judged on an ongoing basis. When it's over, that's when you look at the whole package and decide where it succeeded and where it failed.
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